Page 18 of The Cowboy's Secret Babies

He’d met too many others, out on the tour, who’d had more typical stepparent experiences.

Ryder knew all about broken homes. They couldn’t do anything about what had happened so far, but from this point forward, that was not going to be what happened to his boys. They might have two homes, but he by God was going to see to it personally that they were both happy.

“I don’t know what you’re going to do,” Rosie said, mulishly, to his ear. “I also think that you don’t know, either. We’re still in the heat of the moment. Things could change. One thing that won’t change, though, is that this is the only home those boys have ever known. I am the only parent that they’ve ever known. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, that’s just how it is. That’s what we need to be careful with as we proceed.”

“So tell me how we’ll be proceeding, then,” he said. Maybe he was daring her. “Tell me how it’s going to work?”

“It will work in baby steps,” she replied, her brow wrinkling.

“Bullshit.”

The furrow between her brows became a full frown. “What?”

“That’s bullshit. You had years of baby steps, Rosie. I don’t want to overwhelm them. I don’t know what the hell I want, if you want to know the truth. But I’ll tell you this. I’ve known that I was a father for less than an hour and I’m already determined I’m going to be a good one. Whatever that looks like. And you don’t get to decide how that happens, all on your own. You’ve already done enough of that.”

He felt something like winded, but he meant every word he’d said. She looked like she wanted to argue, but instead she moved, jerkily. It was almost as if she was thinking about sitting down on the sofa, but decided to pace instead, and there was something comforting about that.

If he had to feel this agitated, he was glad she did too.

“They are funny, sweet, impossible, magical little boys,” she told him, and her voice sounded something like urgent. “Levi is bossier. Eli is dreamier. But they’re both wildly stubborn. And they’re a unit. They don’t like to do things without each other. I used to dress them differently when they were little, partly because it helped in telling them apart, and also partly because some people suggested that’s what Ishoulddo.”

“What people?”

Her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red. “Books. Lots of books. I read that it was good to present twins with autonomy. But the funny thing is, now that they throw fits to wear what they want to wear, they prefer to dress alike. Maybe autonomy will come down the road, but as for now, what they like is being twins.”

Ryder also liked being a twin. Their family had been sprawling and loud, with a lot of chaos and shifting alliances as everyone tried to do their thing in such a big crowd. But what Ryder and Wilder had always seen as the best stroke of luck imaginable was that they had each other. Sometimes they operated as a voting block. Sometimes they employed a little two on one to shift matters in their favor. They were a team.

But it was more than that. Having a twin had always meant, to Ryder, that there was just… more of him walking around. He and Wilder were connected in ways that Ryder didn’t try to make any sense of.

It was just how it was. The two of them were never out of touch. They texted all day every day, and called each other a fair amount too, because they didn’t catch each other up on the big events in their lives. They shared every last detail of their lives, so the big events seemed liketheirs, not his or Wilder’s individually. Another shared experience.

He didn’t know how to explain this to Rosie.

“Of course they like being twins,” he said instead. “Particularly identical twins. Fraternal ones got shafted. Some of the fun, fewer of the benefits.”

She was still pacing and he looked past her to the fireplace. And new things seem to bloom just to twist up inside of him. He walked that way, and probably should have noticed the way her eyes widened, as if she thought—

But no, he thought piously,that isn’t what’s happening here.

He reached past her and picked up one of the framed picture that sat on the mantel. It was of two toothy little chunks in baby clothes, all round faces, bright and happy with wet smiles.

That things inside him twisted, hard.

Ryder found himself running a hand over his face and for a moment that stretched out much too long, he wasn’t entirely sure that he wouldn’t do something that he’d regret later. Like puke out his guts. Or worse, double over in the face of all these things he felt inside.

Instead, he put the picture back, very carefully. He scanned the rest of them, documenting two very short, very cute lives that he’d missed so far. When he turned to look at her, she was staring at him with that stricken expression on her face once more.

“Ryder,” she began.

“Why don’t we start with some pictures,” he said, cutting her off, his voice hoarse. “I want to see what I missed.”

Chapter Four

Later that night,Ryder found Zeke in the small tack room he used in the barn. Once it had been for farm use, then it was an office, but now it was Zeke’s workshop. It was where he made his spurs and his bits these days so he could sell them in the summer market and online.

Ryder was happy that he was there, and alone.

He wasn’t quite ready to go wide to the whole family about the day he’d had and how everything had changed. In an instant.

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